Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Need help using /usr/lib/cpp for generic text
Message-ID: <2489@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 23 Sep 89 22:12:49 GMT
References: <836@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu> <14501@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 11

>I believe (but I'm not sure) that m4 is freely redistributable (but not
>in the public domain, since I think it's Berkeley code).

Well, the M4 that comes with 4.3-tahoe is AT&T code.  There is, however,
a publicly-available M4 in the "comp.sources.unix" archive, in volume 13.

I second your recommendation that people use M4 rather than "cpp" for
this purpose, unless they decide to use the publicly-available "cpp" that
comes with X11; the "cpp" that comes with UNIX systems isn't intended to
be used as a general-purpose macro processor, and many aspects of its
behavior are subject to change, as people have already discovered.